Jim Flaherty and Christine Elliott, parents of 23-year-old triplet sons, were one of the great power couples in Canadian public life.

Flaherty — the former federal and provincial finance minister who died Thursday at 64 — and Elliott, the deputy leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, were more than just spouses who worked together.

They were seat-mates in Whitby-Oshawa — he representing the riding federally, she provincially.

Elliott, 58, was at work at the Ontario legislature when the tragic news came from Ottawa.

Three weeks ago, when he announced his retirement from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet after eight years at the helm of the treasury, she beamed when reporters at Queen’s Park asked her about his decision.

An ebullient Elliott said March 19 that her husband’s retirement from his gruelling job as Harper’s first treasurer was “something that we mulled over as a family” over the Christmas holidays.

“He wanted to get through this budget,” she said, noting he was looking forward to having some more time with his family and ponder his next moves outside politics. “He’ll take a look at opportunities that crop up in the private sector and we’ll see where he lands.”

The couple, who met in the early 1980s at the Whitby law firm that would eventually be known as Flaherty, Dow, Elliott & McCarthy LLP, married in 1986.

Their greatest collaboration, of course, is their three adult sons, Galen, John and Quinn.

Years ago at Queen’s Park, Flaherty spotted a bleary-eyed journalist, who he knew was a new father, and expressed sympathy for the reporter’s plight.

“Imagine what it was like with three,” he commiserated. “It was a blur — a blur of diapers!”

Indeed, Elliott once said that as newlyweds she and Flaherty debated which of them would enter electoral politics and put their name on a ballot.

“Then I had triplets and the choice became clear,” she quipped in 2004, recalling her three years at home raising the boys before returning to work at the law firm.

In that same interview, an impish Flaherty joked that his wife would be the more photogenic politician.

“We did talk about that, who would run — she would be the more attractive candidate,” he chortled.

In fact, Flaherty was already canvassing as a rookie Tory candidate in 1990 — a race he lost in NDP premier Bob Rae’s majority victory — when word came that she was in labour.

Elliott called him and asked how many children he’d like to have before telling him triplets were on the way.

“All that I remember is knocking on doors that afternoon thinking, ‘Oh my God, what if we win? How are we going to be able to afford this?’ I was sort of in a state of shock,” he said a decade ago.

￼

A close-knit family — despite the demands of political life — both always emphasized their most important constituents are their sons, one whom, John, is disabled.

His developmental handicap has been a driving force for Elliott and Flaherty, who have actively championed issues involving disabled children for many years in Whitby, around Ontario and across Canada.

“Being a politician is really important to me . . . but I also take my responsibilities as a mother very seriously and Jim does as a father,” Elliott told the Star’s Richard J. Brennan in 2006.

“So our children are our primary concern and we communicate daily with respect to what they are doing. That’s our focus.”

In the same joint interview with Brennan, Flaherty admitted that politics was always a hot topic at the family dinner table.

“One (Galen) thinks of himself as a budding politician and he thinks it’s just great that we are both in elected office. Quinn has consistently told me to quit politics and go back to practising law because Christine told him at one time that we had a lot more money when I practised law and he thinks that’s very good,” he said.

“He’s the budding capitalist and John is the sweetheart who goes with the flow. Whatever is going on with the family is okay with him. The reality is we have led very busy lives and our children have grown up with politics. (The boys) are not strangers to long hours by their parents.”

Elliott agreed at the time: “We seem to have managed it for almost 20 years now and I suspect it will continue that way.”

She was at his side in 2002 and 2004 for his two fruitless bids to become Ontario’s PC leader.

￼

Although Flaherty was disappointed to lose to Ernie Eves in 2002 and to John Tory in 2004, it was a third leadership contest that devastated him the most.

In 2009 — three years after he entered the federal arena and Elliott succeeded him as the MPP for Whitby-Ajax — the Ontario Tories were again looking for a leader.

Encouraged by her husband, she entered the race, finishing third behind eventual winner Tim Hudak, and runner-up MPP Frank Klees.

While the easy-going Elliott, one of the best-liked MPPs at Queen’s Park, took her loss in stride, Flaherty did not.

At the crowded Duke of York pub in Yorkville, where Tories gathered to fete Hudak, he was visibly unhappy during the crowded celebration, surprising Conservatives with his demeanour.

Even though he had been close to Hudak, who was one of his most prominent supporters in the 2002 and 2004 contests, he scolded some Tories for not supporting Elliott.

Long-time friends and allies confided that they had never seen Flaherty so angry about a political setback. They said he was hurting far more over her defeat than of any of his own.